An elephant gets up one leg at a time, and during the process the
passengers on the upper deck are describing parabolas, isosceles
triangles and parallelepipedons in the circumambient atmosphere.
There isn't much to hold on to and that makes it the more exciting.
Then, when the animal finally gets under way, its movements are
similar to those of an earthquake or a vessel without ballast in
a first-class Hatteras gale. The irregularity and uncertainty
of the motion excites apprehension, and as the minutes pass by
you become more and more firmly convinced that something is wrong
with the animal or the saddle or the road, and the way the beast
wiggles his ears is very alarming. There is nobody around to
answer questions or to issue accident-insurance policies and
the naked heathen attendants talk no language that you know.
But after a while you get used to it, your body unconsciously
adjusts itself to the changes of position, and on the return
trip, you have a pretty good time. You become so accustomed to
the awkward and the irregular movements that you really enjoy
the novelty and are perfectly willing to try it again.

But the most wonderful part of all is how the mahout steers the
elephant. It is one of the mysteries that foreigners can never
understand. He carries a goad in each hand--a rod of iron, about
as big as a poker, with an ornamental handle generally embossed
with silver or covered with enamel. One of the points curves
around like half a crescent; the other is straight and both are
sharpened to a keen point. When the mahout or driver wants the
elephant to do something, he jabs one of the goads into his
hide--sometimes one and sometimes the other, and at different
places on the neck, under the ears, and on top of the head, and
somehow or another the elephant understands what a jab in a
particular place means and obeys cheerfully like the great,
good-natured beast that he is. I have never been able to understand
the system. Elephant driving is an occult science.

The road to Amber passes through an interesting part of the city
of Jeypore and beyond the walls the broad highway is crowded with
carts loaded with vegetables and other country produce coming
into town and quite as many loaded with merchandise going the
other way. Some of them are drawn by bullocks and some by camels;
there are long caravans of camels with packs and paniers upon
their backs. As you meet hundreds of pedestrians you will notice
that